This enlightenment that you seek so adamantly comes down to your forgetting yourself. You have been a big topic in your life. You have been the all-time topic. You have seen everything through near-sighted eyes, as if all the Sun’s rays were directed at you, or should have been directed at you.
Becoming enlightened means you forget yourself. You forget self-centeredness. No longer is your life about who said what to you and how what they said made you feel. Heavens, no. You gain a broader perspective. You surpass your self-identity. Your self-imposed identity is so precious to you, it holds you back. You are in a cycle you don’t know how to get out from. You feel so low that you make yourself high, and you depend upon others to do this for you. Watch out.
In this new state of consciousness that you so desire, you find more of your Self, not that inky-dinky personality that demands its due. Your present identification with your little self has another name – let’s face it -- it is called ego.
Enlightenment doesn’t mean everything goes your way, for now you have no investment in your way. You have traded your tiny way for My Vision. You have traded your will for Mine. Whatever you may expect enlightenment to be, it doesn’t mean that now you are supreme. Yes, you reached a peak, yet there is further to go.
Just as you may buy a new car to make you happy, uplift your self-image and your place in the world – perhaps even be the envy of your friends as so many sales pitches say. In any case, you expect the new car to uplift your self-image. Your self-image isn’t what enlightenment is about. Not at all. Just as with the car, enlightenment won’t be what you expect it to be, not for long, because enlightenment is not really a means to an end. Enlightenment isn’t something you own. It isn’t even something you attain. It is something that happens. You could even be the last one to know.
When you become enlightened, and, given enough time in the world - you will - yet, enlightenment isn’t all about your having bliss day and night. You won’t be thinking about you. There could be bliss, however, because you are not the subject of your inquiry any longer. Remember, when you are enlightened, you will have left your identity somewhere. You dropped it. It was in the way of your enlightenment. Now it is out of your way. Now your identity has fallen off. It is of no use to you now. You have bigger vision now, and what was once big to you is not of much account now.
The minute your little self stops barging in, you are free of attachment, and that, My friends, is enlightenment. All that old baggage is simply out of the way. Now you are as if in a new kitchen where odds and ends aren’t lying out on the counter. There are no dishes in the sink. Everything has been put away, and the clutter is gone. There is just you and I. All the rattletrap matters that were big to you once upon a time, have shown their true colors and their small size.
Now you see beyond the beyond. Your whole balance is different. What matters to you now is not even your progress. You are not the main dish on the menu any longer. You forget where you left yourself or put yourself. You are no longer on a shelf for safe-keeping. You are now on top of the world with new viewpoint and responsibilities, yet you no longer exist, not as you used to know yourself. You are beyond yourself. Now you do not come first. There is not even a first nor is there a last.
You are gone. A definition of you is gone. You are undefined. You are Vastness. Shadows are gone. You are gone. Life is. God is. You are emptied out, and now you are acclimating to your new consciousness which fills you to the brim.